Spoon Fed

Chef Anita Lo is so attached to the half-ounce spoon she found at her NYC restaurant Annisa that she had it engravedPhoto by Max Lattoni

Here’s a challenge: Describe the spoons that you cook with.

If all you came up with is “round,” “metal,” or “spoon-shaped,” you’re in good company. In a world where electric pepper mills, immersion blenders, and digital probe thermometers commonly grace the cabinets and countertops of home kitchens, it’s no surprise that the simple spoon tends to escape the amateur cook’s attention.

But in a restaurant kitchen the humble spoon plays a starring role.

“There’s a connection between chefs and their spoons that most people who don’t work in kitchens don’t realize,” says Corey Lee, chef and owner of Benu in San Francisco. “Chefs use spoons for practically every job, including basting, plating, saucing, tasting, flipping and turning meat, or simply stirring a pot.”

That chefs are finicky about their knives has become a matter of publicknowledge, but spoons too are the subject of strong opinions andpredilections. Chefs tend to have their own personal collection ofspoons–jealously guarded and accumulated over the years–that theyfavor for any number of reasons: the way sauce glides off the tip, adeep bowl perfect for gathering up fat for basting, or an ideally sizedand shaped handle.

“I don’t let anyone else use my spoons,” says Jonathan Benno, theformer chef de cuisine at Per Se who now runs the kitchen at Lincoln inNew York. “If one of my spoons goes missing, I’m not going to say thatI stop service, but I’ll really go after the guys. This is a craft,and like craftsmen we have our tools. There are specific tools forcertain jobs and spoons are part of that.”

Balance and feel are important qualities for a spoon a chef uses to plate. Here, chefAnita Lo gathers Hazelnuts for a dish of Cauliflower and Romanesco Gnoccho with Hazelnuts and Sheep’s CheesePhoto by Max Lattoni

So what makes for a great spoon? Unfortunately for the home cooklooking for a quick-and-easy kitchen spoon upgrade, the answer varieswidely not only from chef to chef, but depending on the task.

“We use different styles and shapes of spoons depending on the task weare trying to achieve,” says Thomas Keller, who just ran a pop-up version of The French Laundry in London. (Watch the chef and his staff execute a little spoon action in this video.) “Forshaping quenelles, we look for spoons with a deep and tapered head. For saucing, we will use spoons that have a square or straight edge formaximum control.”

For basting, chefs tend to prefer a larger spoon with a wide angle anddeep bowl to gather a large amount of liquid and toss it quickly over a meat or fish (no, chefs don’t use the large medicine dropper-looking accessory that’s typical of most Americans’ Thanksgiving turkey prep). Spoons used forthe delicate art of plating and saucing will depend as much on theparticular chef as the specifics of a restaurant’s cuisine andpresentation. Among the characteristics that many chefs site as mostimportant are the shape of the spoon’s tip–how sharp or blunt theangle is, which effects the way the sauce comes down onto the plate–as well as the thickness of the lip on the spoon, the depth of thebowl, and the length and width of the handle.

The balance and feel, too, are important qualities for a spoon thatwill be performing the precision operation of plating in a fine diningrestaurant.

“A chef and his spoon is like a tennis player and his racket,” saysPaul Leibrandt, the chef at Corton in New York. “You want somethingbalanced, not too big, something that feels good in your hand.”

Gray Kunz, the chef and restaurateur who formerly ran the kitchen atNew York’s legendary Lespinasse, had so much trouble finding a goodspoon that he began manufacturing his own in the late 90s. Kunz spoons,as they are known, are available at J.B. Prince in two sizes (pictured at left) and arestill widely used in the restaurant industry.

“I thought that most spoons in the kitchen were too small for platingand saucing,” says Kunz. “So the large Kunz spoon is the perfect sizeto give me the exact right amount of sauce that I need. It’s the one tool that I cannot live without. WhenI don’t have it and I plate with a different spoon, it feels awkward.”

Kunz isn’t the only cook to try his hand at purpose-built kitchenspoons. Food writer Michael Ruhlman was looking for a spoon withthe optimal angle for basting and ended up bending the neck of a spoonhe already owned to create an offset handle. He then reproduced thebent spoon and has recently begun selling it on OpenSky in threedifferent sizes (pictured at right) ideal for basting, tasting, and saucing.

“The elements that I considered in making these spoons were the angleof the bowl, the size of the bowl, the feel in your hand – it’s got tofeel good. These spoons are beautifully balanced, they feel good tohold, and they look good,” explains Ruhlman.

And then, a chef’s devotion to his or her spoons often transcends merefunctionality. A particular spoon might have been purchased at a fleamarket during a memorable trip to France, received as a gift from acolleague, or handed down as a family heirloom.

“I have a much stronger attachment to my spoons than my knives, I’m notsure why,” says Anita Lo, the chef and owner of Annisa in New York. Lodoes much of her sauce work with a half-ounce spoon that she found whenshe moved into the West Village restaurant space that now housesAnnisa. It has the word “Diva” engraved on it–a moment of irony forthe supremely down to earth chef.

Unlike with knives, for which a clear hierarchy exists among brands,chefs tend to be brand-agnostic when it comes to choosing spoons. “Mostoften the spoons with shapes we prefer are antiques and can only befound in vintage stores and flea markets,” explains Keller. JonathanBenno has a whole battery of tools that he uses during service atLincoln, including what he calls “79 cent Chinatown spoons” used toplate pasta and two spoons from Shackford’s Kitchen Store in Napa,engraved with initials and given to him as a gift. Corey Lee furnisheshis cooks with three different sizes of a spoon made by vintage silvermaker Community Plate, which have the kind of pointed tip andegg-shaped bowl that he prefers.

Chefs may be all over the map with their spoon choices, but one thingthat they can all agree upon is that losing one is the pits. Not onlycan it be difficult or impossible to replace, but when you’re reachingfor a tool hundreds of times during a restaurant dinner service, theloss of it proves disruptive.

”When you cookit’s very reflexive, everything is happening so quickly, and using thesame tool for the same job is one less thing to think about,” says Lee. “It’s very important not to lose your spoon.”